Hi! Earlier this year I worked on this giant piece for Wizards of the Coast. It is the artwork for the new 4th edition Dungeon Master’s Screen. This piece is huge, over 40 inches in width (13200×2550 pixels). It was actually a lot of fun to work on, trying to figure out how to make that many characters inhabit the same space in a way that is not TOO contrived (you can be the judge of whether or not I succeeded in that). There were some interesting problems to deal with, such as where the folds hit and which panel would be used as the “cover” when placed on the store shelves. Also, towards the end of the process I had to incorporate a few extra inches on either end to accommodate some last minute dimension changes. This provided an opportunity to add a couple of creatures to each end. I talk a little more about the making of this piece in the forthcoming “100 Ways to Create Fantasy Figures” book.

hi everybody -

My book “100 Ways to Create Fantasy Figures” will be out in stores around end of October/beginning of November, and is available for pre-order at your favorite online booksellers. The basic approach for this book was to look at 100 different concepts/skills/things-to-think-about/etc. that you might run into as you’re designing and illustrating fantasy-based characters. The book grew out of some of the articles I had written for ImagineFX magazine, and in fact the publisher approached me after seeing some of them.

Anyway, a lot of the illustrations come from work done for Wizards of the Coast and a couple of other clients, and are used to illustrate the various points in the book. This isn’t a real hardcore art fundamentals book, as I kinda learned what I know by flailing along as best I could. What it does represent are some of the things I learned along the way, and the main issues and problems/solutions that I seemed to encounter most often as I worked.

If you’re at all interested in doing fantasy type illustration work, it might be a good resource to see the sort of things you’ll want to think about when putting together a portfolio. Or, you could also just point and laugh.

Here’s some photos of an advance copy that the publisher d00ds sent me. Please pardon the crapness of the photo quality.

Here’s a recent illustration for Wizards of the Coast, from their “Keep on the Shadowfell” online dealio. I’ve been experimenting a bit with a more line-art intensive style on some of the recent stuff for them. I think there are instances where it works, and others where a more painterly approach is more appropriate.

I will say that it’s trickier doing line art directly into Photoshop than it is with pencil and paper.

Here is some cover art work I did recently for Devil’s Due publishing, which is now up on their August solicitations page. The editor asked for a piece reminiscent of the Hammer vampire films from the 60s/70s. (70s? Not sure…)

Hi there

As the title says I am not actually dead, as my last post date of February might have you believe. I have been doing a lot of work for the regular cast of clients, and most of it I can’t show until later.

I do have something I wanted to mention - I’ve been working on this project for over a year now, and it will be available later this year, in October. It’s a sort of how-to book on designing and illustrating fantasy characters. The publisher,

David & Charles, saw some of the material I had been contributing to ImagineFX magazine and they contacted me about putting together a book. This is the first of a set of books.

It is available for pre-order now on the amazon.com site here.

Another creature piece I did for Wizards of the Coast recently, for their online Dungeon magazine. This is from “Last Breaths.”

A piece recently completed for Wizards of the Coast, for their online Dungeon magazine (#152). This is actually an earlier version, but I like it better than the one the art director approved.

This is a piece for Wizards of the Coast online Dungeon mag. You can download the pdf here (requires registration): http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/duad/20071207

Here’s a piece from the recently released book “Anauroch: The Empire of Shade” from Wizards of the Coast.

Hi there -

I put together a book of paintings and sketches, a mix of personal work and freelance illustration work (a fair amount of Wizards of the Coast stuff). It’s full color interiors, 159 pages, and is available in hardcover ($48) and paperback ($35). You can order through my storefront page at lulu.com; here is a link:

http://stores.lulu.com/francistsai

The order page at lulu.com has a low resolution preview of several of the pages.